Little Voices Ringing In My Ears

My ear has suddenly started ringing.  Isn’t that supposed to mean something?  I know burning is someone talking about you, but what is ringing?  Someone singing about you?  Lord, I hope not.  Laughing at you?  Perhaps.  The voices in my head?  Ooh…

I did a Very Brave Thing on Friday.  My husband took a break from his workday to come play photog while I convinced a dear friend of mine to come play demo dummy so I could take some pictures of me doing Thai massage.  Because, honestly, every time Thai massage comes up in a conversation (which with me being the kind of person who will go all awkward and beg someone to let me work on them), I get weird looks and a “Whuh?”  It’s at that point that I haul out my schpiel: It’s a form of passive yoga that uses stretches and compressions to open up the joints, free the muscles, and work key acupressure points to relieve pain and help the body heal itself.  People catch on “yoga” usually and say, “Oh, cool!” but, honestly, they don’t have a lick more of an idea of what it is than they did when I started.

Well, it’s high time I got my website up and running, and I’m doing a little marketing campaign for the teachers at Earl’s elementary school, so I decided to face the inevitable:  Someone is going to have to see my fat ass doing these crazy poses to even begin to understand what exactly it is I do.

I. Hate. Having my picture made.  And that’s made up and dressed up and hair done and tummy reeled in by 15 layers of spandex and Spanx.  Strip most of the make-up, throw me outside on a mat in my front yard on a nearly 90 degree spring day in full sun so that both model and I are slippery with sunscreen and sweat, and tell me to do Thai, and I would typically run away screaming, never to be seen again.  Only this time, I couldn’t.  This time, it had to be done.  So I bucked up and did it.  And while I’m thrilled with the results, it still left me with that weird ringing in my ear.

Six years ago, I had a doctor look me square in the eye, the results of copious hormone testing and an ultrasound visually confirming PCOS in his hands, and say, “You know what?  Don’t even worry about losing the weight.  It’s not going to happen.  Just worry about stabilizing as best you can.”

To some women, that would be a (sideways) good thing to hear a doctor say: “Hey!  Here’s your Get Out of Fat Jail Free card!  We’re not going to wail on you for not losing weight.  Let’s just try to keep it where it is and we’ll be all good!”

To me, I heard: “Abandon hope, all who enter here.”

I don’t LIKE being this size.  I’ve never liked being this size.  Yes, I’ve worked out.  Yes, I’ve dieted.  Before I had Earl, I lost 30 lbs in 3 months on Weight Watchers.  After Earl, after the PCOS reared its ugly head, I did Weight Watchers for 3 months and lost THREE POUNDS.  I spent a month at Duke Diet and Fitness Center and, yes, I lost 10 pounds, but the moment I stepped out of the facility, I stopped losing.  I’m still at essentially the same size I was when I left there.  I never even got to buy new clothes.

I have a new doctor who’s working with me on the weight thing from a chronic Iron/D/B12 deficiency standpoint.  He has me off of ALL grains, eating more steak, and has given me permission to experiment on myself.  My weight has not changed much cumulative, but I’m down 2.5″ in my waist, which is his sole measure of “success” – that and how I feel, which is “BETTER!  YAY!”

But I look at those pictures and that 2.5″ seems so insignificant.  When will it move faster?  When will my fingers stop looking fat?  When will my ass not begin mid-thigh and go all the way up to my lower rib?

And I realize, sitting here this morning, that that’s the ringing in my ear – the negative self-talk and the voices of others in my past.  What I should be hearing is that despite my size, I can do this amazing practice.  I am training for my first 5K.  I do have more energy.  I am in more control of my destiny, and I’m actively making decisions that will lead me down a path more of my own choosing rather than leaving me feeling like fat flotsam in a foamy flow.

I’ll never be a size 6.  I likely will never be a 10 or maybe even a 12 again.  My body just simply will not allow it.  But, dammit, I can shoot for the stars.  I may only land on the moon, but you know what?  That’s not a bad place to be.  At least maybe up there, my ears won’t ring.